Sign Language Interpreting and Text Alternatives for Deaf Students - Assignment Example

Give at least four reasons why we evaluate the language growth of deaf students.

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1. The evaluations enable teachers to know the level of language development in the child and design effective teaching methods to allow further learning.
2. Language evaluations allow deaf students to gauge themselves and gain insight on what they intend to achieve. It sets standards that measure progress.
3. Language evaluation enables deaf students to have a competitive spirit as each of them aspires to be the most learned. The competition acts as motivation to master signed concepts and other physical communication techniques.
4. Like standard academic assessment, language evaluations nurture motivation in deaf students. It provides a benchmark that each student works to achieve.

List at least four differences between rubrics and skill checklists

1. A rubric shows the evaluation criterion for a test while a skills checklist evaluates personal abilities.
2. A rubric contains various sections with their corresponding grading marks or results usually from lowest to highest while a skills checklist contains only checks for the presence or absence of skill.
3. Rubrics are usually filled and documented by an instructor such as teacher while skills checklist are partly filled by the students in self-evaluation.
4. Rubrics are usually formal and applied to research, essays, dissertations and other academic-based writing while skills checklists are versatile and can be used in both formal and informal settings.

Explain the effects of bringing in an interpreter to a testing situation. Reflect upon: - both positive and negative effects, - the impact on standardization, - and physical accommodations for the interpreter.

An interpreter in a testing situation allows the instructor and the student to communicate effectively and have a formal exchange that leads to evaluation. An interpreter enables a teacher with limited mastery of sign language to interact with students. Interpreters are usually professionals who have studied the art of sign language more than the teachers. As a result, they have a better understanding of the deaf students' psychology and their involvement in evaluation may assist teachers to set up more comprehensive and understandable questions (Marschark et al., 2006). Interpreters are not always perfect, and their interpretation may be different from what an instructor intended. It can thus lead to misinterpretation and presentation of wrong testing questions. Furthermore, an interpreter is a stranger to the deaf students being evaluated since he or she was only brought at the time of testing. The students thus have no preexisting relationship with the interpreters and may be obliged to withhold some of their inner thoughts and ideas.

Sign language is not as extensive as a spoken language. It includes many accommodations and reductions of many words into single signs. The standardization effect thus compromises on the information exchanged in a testing situation (Marschark et al., 2006). An interpreter may standardize a test question to basics that may be difficult to understand and offer a comprehensive answer. The standardization further guides the setting of questions since the teacher has to make them forthright and with precise answers that students can write or sign. Interpretation is solely reliant on the skills of the interpreter. The interpreter's physical accommodations dictate whether effective communication between a student and an instructor are achieved. For effective interpretation, students ought to know non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and posture. This calls for additional lessons before the involvement of an interpreter. However, most of the learning is basic since virtually all instructors to deaf students employ non-verbal cues. All in all, physical accommodations act as limits which must be adequately controlled lest an entire test loses credibility.

There are times we must consult individuals with special credentials to conduct parts of the evaluation of a deaf student, especially those with multiple disabilities. Why and who would you consult? Reference at least four professionals with special credentials that might be consulted for accurate assessment of the needs of a deaf child with multiple disabilities.

The most common specialists in evaluating deaf students are sign language interpreters who liaise between the student and the teacher. Other professionals that one would seek are psychologists to understand the mental processes of the deaf student and behaviour. An audiologist to assist in a class setting to reduce noise and set equipment such as hearing aids for partially deaf students. An audiologist would be vital to children with hearing aids since the devices amplify sounds including background noise and thus for effective use, the classrooms for deaf students ought to be sound engineered to reduce aspects such as echo and background noise, which compromise the audibility of the teacher. A child care worker to ensure compassion in conducting the evaluations to maintain comfort in the students and ascertain their safety. A social worker may be involved in evaluating children with multiple disabilities to ensure adherence to the medical processes of safety and treatment (Marschark et al., 2006).

Consider that you have taken multiple language samples on videotape or DVD. Discuss the process you would use to transcribe the signed behaviour to print. Include in your discussion: - the impact transcription would have on the sample of the students who use ASL, and - the impact transcription would have on the sample of the students who use a more English-based sign system.

First, I would write the speakers names and their corresponding speeches from the videotape. Then I would watch for physical traits that they used and include them as italicized captions at the end of a sentence. Examples include [yawning], [smiley face] etc. since the transcription would be in the specific words used by the speakers, there would not be much difference to ASL and English-based students since the print would be devoid of accent. However, students who use more English based systems would understand the wording better and relate it to contexts that they have experienced in life. Students who are deaf but with normal sight would be allowed to watch the videotapes to read lip movements and aspects such as mood and emotions observable from the speakers.

References

Marschark, M., Leigh, G., Sapere, P., Burnham, D., Convertino, C., Stinson, M., ... & Noble, W. (2006). Benefits of sign language interpreting and text alternatives for deaf students' classroom learning. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 11(4), 421-437.